Alabama

Thomas Warren Whisenhant

Thomas Warren Whisenhant was convicted of raping, mutilating, and murdering 3 women in Mobile County, Alabama in the 1970s. Whisenhant would abduct women, rape them in his pickup before shooting them with a 32 pistol. Whisenhant would visit the bodies of his victims after killing them and mutilate them. He killed his last victim just hours after celebrating his daughter’s birthday. He was convicted in 1976, and was executed after several appeals by lethal injection in 2010. Whisenhant declined having any final words when he was eventually put to death.

Alaska

Robert Hansen

Robert Hansen, known as the “Butcher Baker” due to owning a bakery, was a serial rapist and killer in the Anchorage Alaska area between 1971 and 1983. Hansen would abduct women and release them into the Alaskan wilderness only to hunt them down with his rifle. After being brought into custody Hansen confessed to raping over 30 women, and murdering 17. Only 12 of the 17 bodies were ever found. Hasen died in prison in 2014 while serving 461+ years.

Arizona

Daniel Wayne Cook

Daniel Wayne Cook, John Matzke, Carlos Froyan Cruz-Ramos, and Kevin Swaney all worked together at a restaurant in Lake Havasu City, Arizona during the summer of 1987. When Cruz-Ramos was caught trying to find some money Cook stole from him in Cook’s apartment, Cook and Matzke tied him up and began to torture him for hours. They eventually killed him by crushing his throat with a pipe. After Matzke fell asleep on the couch, Cook lead Swaney to the body and proceeded to torture him the same way. Once Matzke was awake they both strangled Swaney with a bed sheet. Overridden with guilt, Matzke confessed to the murderers and served 20 years. Cook was executed in 2012, and thanked Red Robin in his final words.

Arkansas

Ronald Gene Simmons

Right around Christmas in 1987, Ronald Gene Simmons murdered his entire family. On December 22nd he first shot his wife and oldest son before strangling his 3-year-old granddaughter and disposing of the bodies in a cesspit he had made his children dig. He then waited for the rest of his children to come to house. Upon their arrivals he told them he had gifts for them but wanted to give them their presents one by one. He first strangled his 17-year-old daughter and held her under the water in a rain barrel. His two other daughters and son were killed the same way. The day after Christmas when his extended family arrived at the house, Simmons shot his children and their spouses before strangling their two infant children and his 7-year-old granddaughter. Simmons covered the bodies with coats and his best table cloth, wrapped the babies in plastic and left them in the abandoned cars, before going to his local bar for a drink. Simmons was apprehended by the police after killing a bank teller, an oil company worker, and wounding 3 other people. He put up no fight and never appealed his death sentence. He was executed by lethal injection in 1990.

California

The Manson “Family”

The Manson Family was a communal group of people lead by the infamous Charles Manson in the 1960s. Manson implied heavily to his followers that he was a Christ figure, that coupled with LSD usage and isolation from the outside lead to brainwashing of the family members.

During the summer of 1969, The Manson Family carried out several murders. Manson was attempting to incite a race war, hoping to pin the murders on the Black Panthers. Bobby Beausoleil, Mary Brunner, and Susan Atkins held Gary Hinman hostage for days in order to retrieve his inheritance. When they were unsuccessful, Beausoleil stabbed him to death and the women painted Black Panther symbols on the wall with his blood. Mason ordered Charles Watson to take Susan Atkins, Linda Kasabian, and Patricia Krenwinkel to go to Terry Melcher’s house and murder anyone who was there. They killed five people, who were at the house—pregnant actress Sharon Tate, Jay Sebring, Abigail Folger, and Wojciech Frykowski, and Steven Parent. Lastly, Leslie Van Houten, Steve “Clem” Grogan, and the four members from the Tate murders murdered Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary in their Los Feliz home.

Many of the Manson family members were given the death penalty, but it was revised to Life in Prison as California does not have the death penalty. Manson himself is currently incarcerated at the Corcoran State Prison, and has been denied parole 16 times.

Colorado

The Bennett Family Murders

In January of 1984, just two months after the Bennett family moved into their Aurora home, 3 of the 4 family members were brutally murdered by a still unknown assailant. Bruce Bennett was stabbed and bludgeoned to death, while his wife Debra was sexually assaulted before being bludgeoned to death as well. The man then beat 7-year-old Melissa Bennett to death, before attempting to kill 3-year-old Vanessa, who survived the attack but still has weakness on the left side of her body. Police were never able to catch the murderer, only link him to a bludgeoning of another murder in Lakewood. As of 2017, Colorado Police are still attempting to close this case with DNA evidence.

Connecticut

Michael Bruce Ross

Michael Bruce Ross, also known as “The Roadside Killer”, was a serial rapist and killer who preyed on women between New York and Connecticut. Ross claimed after his first murder his senior year of college he felt extreme remorse and vowed to never hurt anyone ever again, but then between 1981 and 1984 he would go on to murder 8 women. Ross became a devote Catholic while in prison, and supported the death sentence against him saying he did not want to cause his victim’s families any more pain. Ross was executed in 2005, making him the first and last execution in the state of Connecticut.

Delaware

Steven Brian Pennell

Steven Brian Pennell is the state of Delaware’s only known serial killer. Also known as “The Route 40 Killer”, Pennell was found guilty for the torture and murder of 2 New Castle County women and is believed to have murdered 3 others. After picking up an undercover policewoman, fibres from the back of Pennell’s van linked him to the crimes. He was executed by lethal injection, the first person to be executed in Delaware after the death penalty was reinstated in the state in 1975.

Florida

Christine Falling

Christine “The Babysitter from Hell” Falling was just 17 when she was convicted of smothering five children she had been babysitting. Falling claimed that she would hear voices chanting “Kill the baby!” and the only way to silence them way to push a blanket over the child’s face. After confessing Falling was convicted to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 25 years.

Georgia

Eric Robert Rudolph

Eric Robert Rudolph was an American domestic terrorist convicted of several anti-abortion and anti-gay bombings across the Southern United States between 1996 and 1998. His first bombing was at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. The blast killed 1 spectator and injured over 100 others. He also confessed to bombing an abortion clinic in Georgia, a lesbian bar in Georgia, and an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Alabama resulting in the death of an Alabaman security guard and a police officer. Rudolph would often use “nail bombs” where the nails would act like shrapnel. As part of a plea bargain to avoid the death penalty, Rudolph plead guilty to all charges. He is currently serving four life sentences at the ADX Florence Supermax in Colorado.

Hawaii

Byran Koji Uyesugi

Known as the Xerox Murders, Byran Koji Uyesugi is responsible for the deadliest shooting in the state of Hawaii. Uyesugi started working at Xerox in 1984 and reportedly, members of his team were harassing and ostracizing him. After undergoing a psych evaluation after kicking in a door, Uyesugi was known to have paranoia and delusions, but was not believed to be dangerous. Leading up the shooting, his supervisors were trying to phase out a copy machine that he had been servicing. Uyesugi was resistant to the change, saying that he was nervous he wouldn’t be able to keep up with the technological advances.

On the morning of November 2, 1999, he showed up to work with a 9mm Glock and opened fire, killing his supervisor and 6 of his co-workers. After a 5 hour stand off with police, Uyesugi surrendered. Despite trying to plead not guilty by reason of insanity, he was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole. The Xerox building was abandoned and stood empty until 2004, when it became a sound stage for the hit TV series Lost.

Idaho

Alofa Time

Alofa Time was convicted of murdering three people in Idaho during the summer of 2006. Time intentionally crashed his truck into the car of Samantha Nina Murphy, 36, and her daughter Jae Lynne Grimes, 4. Murphy’s 8-year-old daughter was injured but ultimately survived the crash. Samantha and Jae were both killed, and the impact caused the head of Time’s ex-wife to fly out onto the road. The rest of her stabbed and dismembered remains were later found in a car at Time’s home. Time was sentenced to life in prison in December of 2006.

Illinois

Tillie Kilmek

Tillie Klimke was a Polish-American serial killer active in Chicago in the early 1920s. Klimke was discovered to be poisoning her husbands, family members, neighbors, and even neighborhood dogs with lethal doses of arsenic. Klimke painted herself as a psychic, “predicting” when people would die. But it was later revealed this was possible due to Klimke herself scheduling and executing the deaths. It was found out she had taken out extravagant life insurance policies on her deceased husbands, which she made a lot of money from cashing in on. Despite her reported “plain” appearance, she married and killed 2 husbands, and attempted to kill a third before being caught. Klimke was convicted and sentenced in 1923, and died in prison in 1936.

Indiana

Carl “Charlie” Brandt

Carl “Charlie” Brandt was a supposed American serial killer from Fort Wayne, Indiana. In 1971 when Brandt was 13, he shot his father point blank in the back before murdering his pregnant mother who was taking a bath with the same gun. He attempted to murder his sister, but his gun wouldn’t fire. Brandt was never diagnosed with any sort of psychiatric disorder, and was therefore released from the psychiatric hospital after just one year.

In 2004 Brandt and his wife Terri evacuated their home due to Hurricane Ivan and moved in with his niece Michelle. Just two weeks after they moved in, Michelle was reported to not be answering her phone. When a neighbor went to investigate, she found Brandt’s body hung from the rafters of the garage. He had hung himself after stabbing his wife to death and dismembering and disemboweling his niece with kitchen knives.

Due to the brutality and efficieny of the crimes, police in Indiana have since linked at least 2 other deaths to Brandt, and it is widely believed he was a serial killer.

Iowa

Carroll Edward Cole

Carroll Edward Cole was a serial killer who was active in the early 1970s. Allegedly, Cole targeted women who were unfaithful to their husbands because they reminded him of his own adulterous mother. Cole would pick up women in various bars and taverns before strangling them to death in his car and driving around with the bodies in the trunks before dumping them near the woods. Upon being caught Cole confessed to at least 14 murders, although said he wasn’t sure exactly what the number of kills was due to his heavy drinking. When Cole’s eventual death penalty passed he reportedly said, “Thanks, Judge.” He was executed in the state of Nevada in 1985.

Kansas

John Edward Robinson Sr.

John Edward Robinson is sometimes referred to as “the internet’s first serial killer” due to his affinity for chatrooms and self-identifying as “Slavemaster” online in the 90s to lure victims.

Robinson got his start in 1984 when he hired a “sales representative” and sent her away for training, where she was never heard from again. He then reportedly hired two other women in 1985 and 1987, and both women disappeared. One woman’s missing persons report remains open to this day. While he was incarcerated for fraud Robinson became close with a librarian, Beverly Bonner, who upon his release left her husband to go work for him. She immediately disappeared but since her alimony checks were still clearing (due to Robinson cashing them), her family did not suspect foul play.

One of Robinson’s first “Slavemaster” encounters was with Sheila Faith, who had a 15-year-old disabled daughter. Robinson posed as a wealthy businessman who would pay for her daughter’s medical costs, and immediately when the two women moved to be with him they disappeared. Robinson would cash in their pension checks for the next seven years.

In 1999 he “married” (it wasn’t a legal marriage as he was still married to a woman in Indiana) Izabela Lewicka, a 21-year-old Polish immigrant living in Indiana, and made it clear she would be his sex slave. She disappeared shortly after. Suzette Trouten, a nurse, was intent on traveling the world with Robinson as his sex slave shortly after Lewicka’s disappearance. But she herself went missing right after.

Robinson was eventually apprehended in June 2000 at his farm in Kansas, after a woman filed a sexual assault claim against him and another charged him with stealing her sex toys. Because of the theft charge police were granted the right to search his farm, where they found the bodies of Izabela Lewicka and Suzette Trouten in two 85-pound chemical drums. Robinson had storage facilitates across state lines in Missouri which harbored similar drums containing the bodies of Beverly Bonner, Sheila Faith, and her daughter Debbie Faith.

Robinson is currently on death row in the state of Kansas.

Kentucky

Donald Harvey

Donal “The Angel of Death” Harvey is an American serial killer who has claimed to be responsible for 87 murders, but police actually attribute him to between roughly 30 and 60 murders. Harvey was an orderly at Marymount Hospital in London, Kentucky, where he would poison patients using arsenic; cyanide; insulin; suffocation; miscellaneous poisons; and morphine, but would also turn off ventilators, put hangers into catheters and IVs in order to create punctures, and inject patients with HIV and Hepatitis B. Harvey claimed he would kill patients to end their suffering, but also admitted to murdering patients who simply angered or annoyed him.

Because he pled guilty to many of the killings, Harvey is currently serving life sentences instead of facing the death penalty.

Lousiana

Marie Delphine LaLaurie

Madam Marie Delphine LaLaurie was a New Orleans Creole socialite and alleged abuser and serial killer who inhabited the French Quarter during the 1800s.

During her third marriage to physician Leonard Louis Nicolas LaLaurie, the couple purchased a home at 1140 Royal Street. They built the home up two stories, and included a separate quarter for that of their slaves. LaLaurie maintained the property basically by herself, as well as established herself within the New Orleans society.

In the 1830s, it was widely suspected that LaLaurie was horribly mistreating her many slaves. A 12-year-old girl reportedly jumped to her death from the LaLaurie mansion in order to avoid a whipping after accidentally snagging one of Marie’s tangles in her hair. When a fire broke out in the kitchen of the house in 1834, officers found the 70-year-old cook chained by her ankle to the stove. She admitted to starting the fire, hoping to avoid being taken to the attic, where people went but never returned. When the LaLaurie’s refused to allow people into the “uppermost room”, rioters broke down the doors and found “seven slaves, more or less horribly mutilated … suspended by the neck, with their limbs apparently stretched and torn from one extremity to the other.” There were also reports of iron collars, and head wounds so deep it impaired the individuals’ ability to function.

Marie LaLaurie’s husband was quoted as to saying, “Some people had better stay at home rather than come to others’ houses to dictate laws and meddle with other people’s business,” in regards to the inquiries and investigations. Marie LaLaurie fled New Orleans during the mob breakouts, and her whereabouts and final resting place are essentially unknown.

Maine

Matthew Paul Cushing

Matthew Cushing of Old Orchard Beach, Maine, was found guilty of murdering his mother, step-father, and step-brother five years after killing them in 2013. Cushing waited until the family returned home, stunning them with a taser, before stabbing them and the family dog to death. His younger brother was just 15 at the time in 2008. Cushing then set the family home on fire. In order to avoid a trial, Cushing plead guilty to all three murders. His motive is still unknown. The family house was later leveled, and a memorial for the deceased now stands in its place.

Maryland

Samuel Sheinbein

At age 17, Samuel Sheinbein was reportedly looking to begin practicing murder. After an altercation between fellow high school students Aaron Benjamin Needle and Alfredo Tello Jr. broke out, Sheinbein decided Tello was the perfect mark. Sheinbein created a murder checklist including items like, “Zap, pepper, metal restraints, rainsuits … X-Acto hobby knife, plastic bags’ and other items” including size 14 shoes (as he wore a size 10) with the infamous line, “If they don’t fit, you must acquit,” written on the same page.

Sheinbein and Needle knocked Tello out with a stun gun, before beating him to death with a sawed off shotgun. They later stored the body in Sheinbein’s garage before dismembering him, and burning the torso so the body could not be identified. After a realtor discovered the remains in the garage, police canines lead a trail of blood back to the Sheinbein residence.

Sheinbein fled to Israel with the help of his father, attempting to avoid prosecution by becoming an Israeli citizen due to his father’s dual citizenship. Despite becoming an instant citizen, Sheinbein was extradited and went on trial in 1999. His extradition caused severe tension between the US and Israel, as well as was the inspiration for an overhaul of Israeli extradition policy.

Sheibein was sentenced to 24 years, but on February 24th, 2014 while on furlough and just one year before he would be eligible for parole, he held a stand off with police and was shot and killed.

Massachusetts

Michael McDermott

Michael “Mucko” McDermott was the gunman responsible for the Wakefield massacre of 2000. The morning after Christmas McDermott went through the offices of Edgewater Technology with an AK-47 assault rifle, shotgun and semiautomatic pistol, immediately gunning down two receptionists and made his way to the HR department. He killed three employees there, and then headed to accounting where he blasted through the door and murdered three other people. When he was apprehended by police he was sitting calmly in the lobby surrounded by his guns and a bag filled with ammunition.

McDermott attempted to plea innocence by reason of insanity, claiming “he was born without a soul and that God had allowed him to earn a soul by traveling back in time to kill Nazis.” But many reports of money troubles made it easy for the prosecution to prove why he really shot up his former employer. The two departments he targeted—accounting and HR—had recently decided to garnish his wages to pay overdue taxes to the IRS. A request for a cash advance by McDermott had also been denied. And the morning of the shooting, McDermott received a call that his car was about to be repossessed to which he replied, “I won’t be needing it. Come pick it up.”

McDermott is currently serving 7 consecutive life sentences with no possibility for parole.

Michigan

Benjamin Tony Atkins

Benjamin Atkins was a serial killer active in Detroit who murdered 11 women over the course of a 9 month period between December of 1991, and August of 1992. Atkins would rape and strangle his victims, many of whom were prostitutes, and leave their bodies in abandoned buildings around the Highland Park area of Detroit. Once apprehended, Atkins said he was motivated by his hatred of prostitution. It was revealed during his trial that Atkins was a victim of abuse and rape, and while growing up would often witness his own mother engage in prostitution. He was sentenced to 11 life sentences, and died while in prison in 1997 due to an infection related to his HIV.

Minnesota

Lawrence Scott Dame

Lawrence Scott Dame is a Minnesota man who murdered his sister, her husband, and their three children just a day after he was released from prison for stealing a car. As part of his release, Dame was supposed to be checking it with a mental health facility due to the fact that he was incredibly paranoid and admitted to hearing voices. He at one point told his mother, “The spirits said your family is going to kill you. Well, I better kill everyone before they kill me.”

The night before the murders Dame’s sister called 911 saying, “”Um, it’s regarding, OK my brother got discharged from the um jail today and the consequences were that he was supposed to go to the hospital because he hears voices and he stole my car and all this stuff. My husband brought him to the hospital and the hospital will not take him, and so my husband is bringing him back here because we can’t get ahold of his parole officer. Well, I can’t have him stay here. He has to go back to jail or something.” Because she hadn’t officially evicted Dame from her home, police couldn’t legally arrest him.

On the night of October 18th, 2000, Dame murdered the family while they were asleep in bed. He beat them all with a hammer, and stabbed his brother-in-law and stabbed his nephews (ages 12 and 22 months) and niece (age 9). When his brother-in-law didn’t show up for work, a concerned co-worker called the police who discovered the massacre. Dame confessed to the crimes but offered no motive. He was sentenced to five life sentences in 2002.

Mississippi

Carla Ann Hughes

Carla Ann Hughes is a former middle school teacher from Jackson, Mississippi. Hughes became romantically involved with another teacher, Keyon Pittman, from her school in 2006, despite the fact that he had a live in fiancée, Avis Banks, who was pregnant.

On November 29, 2006, Pittman found Banks’ body in their Mississippi home. The perpetrator had kicked in the back door, and fatally shot and stabbed Banks in the garage. Hughes initially tried to hide her relationship with Pittman, and the fact that she had borrowed her cousin’s pistol (which at the time was loaded) and returned it with an empty chamber. Police later matched Hughes’ shoes with prints on the backdoor. Hughes plead the 5th and did not testify during the trial.

After eight hours of deliberation, the jury announced they had reached a verdict on October 13, 2009. Hughes was found guilty on both counts of capital murder. Although she could have faced the death penalty, Hughes is instead serving two consecutive life sentences without parole.

Missouri

Robert Berdella

Also known as “The Butcher of Kansas City”, Robert Berdella was a serial killer from 1984 to 1988 in Missouri. Berdella was the owner of Bob’s Bazaar Bizarre, a novelty shop that specialized in occult artifacts. Berdella would pick up young men, sometimes who were prostitutes, and hold them captive raping, sodomizing, and torturing them for days, even weeks, in his home. He would electrocute the young men, give the acupuncture, and even admitted to gauging out a victim’s eye to “see what would happen.” Berdella kept a diary of his activities, including each time he would rape his victims.

In 1988, one of the Berdella’s would-be victims leapt from the second story window of the home in order to get help. He ran to a neighbor’s house wearing nothing but a dog collar and the neighbors immediately called the police. Inside the home they found torture devices, a satanic robe, and over 200 photographs of men being strung up. When police realized that one of the men in the photographs was likely dead, they did more investigating and found a human skull and other remains in the backyard. Berdella avoided the death penalty by giving a full confession.

Montana

Jordan Linn Graham

Jordan Linn Graham was married to Cody Johnson just 8 days before pushing him off of a cliff in Glacier National Park. After pushing him off of a popular spot called “The Loop” on the Going to the Sun Road, Graham drove home to Kalispell but told no one what had happened. She later would try to fabricate an email from a friend called “Tony” saying that Johnson had fallen during a boy’s trip. Police later concluded that Tony was a fake account set up by Graham. Graham later admitted that she was having doubts about her marriage, and during an argument she pushed him, he fell, and then she “took off and ran.” Mishandling of the evidence made solidifying a first degree charge difficult (prosecution claimed Graham had blindfolded him and led him to the spot but the alleged blindfold wasn’t properly handled by police) so Graham plead guilty to second degree murder, and is currently serving 30 years.

Nebraska

Charles Starkweather

The inspiration behind films like Natural Born Killers, Badlands, and The Sadist, Charles Starkweather was an American spree killer from Lincoln, Nebraska who went on a murderous road trip with his underage girlfriend that ended in Wyoming during early 1958.

19-year-old Starkweather met 14-year-old Caril Ann Fugate through her older sister, who was dating one of his friends. The two became a couple but due to Starkweather’s known troubled past, her family highly disapproved of their relationship. Some people believe that Starkweather convinced Fugate that by killing her family they could finally be together no questions asked.

On January 21, 1958, Starkweather went to the Fugate home without Caril Ann. There, he shot her mother and stepfather, and strangled and stabbed her two-year-old baby sister. When Fugate came home, the couple hid the bodies behind the family home. They lived there until the 27th, when Fugate’s grandmother became suspicious and called the police.

They then fled to the farm of a family friend, who Starkweather shot as well. They abandoned their vehicle and were picked up by two local teens who said they would give them a ride. After forcing them to drive to a storm shelter, Starkweather shot the boy and attempted to rape the girl. When he was unsuccessful he became enraged and shot her as well. Later, he would attempt to pin the murder of the girl on Fugate, who adamantly denied she killed anyone during Starkweather’s murderous trip.

Fugate and Starkweather drove to a wealthier part of Lincoln and broke into a home, killing both the woman who lived their and her maid. The bodies were found with multiple stab wounds and Starkweather snapped the neck of the family dog. When the woman’s husband returned home for the evening Starkweather shot him as well. The couple then stole their car and fled.

Needing to get rid of the vehicle, they came across a traveling salesman asleep in his car. After waking him, Starkweather shot him and stole his car. The car had a push-pedal emergency break, something Starkweather was unfamiliar with, and the car stalled. An altercation with another driver provided enough time for a deputy sheriff to arrive on the scene. Fugate fled claiming Starkweather was going to kill her, and a high speed chase ensued. Starkweather was hit by a police bullet deep enough that he pulled over and surrendered, thinking he would bleed to death.

Starkweather was convicted of only the murder of Robert Jensen, the teenaged boy who offered him a ride, but was sentenced to death in June of 1959. Caril Ann served 17 years of her life sentence, and was released in 1976.

Nevada

Zane Michael Floyd

Zane Michael Floyd was an Ex-Marine convicted of murdering 4 people during a spree killing at a Las Vegas supermarket in 1999. Floyd was honorably discharged from the Marine Corps, but told he would not be able to reenlist due to his alcoholism.

On June 3rd, 1999, after raping and sodomizing an escort in his home, Floyd entered an Albertson’s supermarket wearing Marine camouflage and opened fire with a shotgun. He killed four employees with point blank shots, and fired at another who pretended to be dead. As he was leaving the store, he whispered at that employee, “Yeah you’re dead.” When he realized the supermarket was surrounded, he threatened suicide but was convinced to surrender.

Floyd was convicted of 4 consecutive death penalties. His first appeal is still waiting in the federal court system.

New Hampshire

Carl C. Drega

Carl Drega from Bow, New Hampshire had a long history of conflict with his local police department and government, usually involving code enforcement for what he could and could not do on his property. After a dispute over a tax assessment on the property, Drega began equipping his land with early-warning electronic noise and motion detectors, as well as purchased armored vests and an AR-15.

On August 19th, 1997, Drega was stopped by a state trooper in the parking lot of a supermarket for having “too much rust” on his pickup. Drega got out of his truck with a rifle and began firing at the officer. When the officer fled to a field, Drega followed him and murdered him. When another trooper arrived on the scene, Drega shot him from several hundred feet away before the officer could even exit his vehicle. Drega stole the police car and drove the office of the Colebrook District Court judge, and shot and killed her. A newspaper editor at the office tried to disarm him, but was shot and killed as well.

Drega then returned to his property and set his house on fire before setting up his final stand on a dead end road on the Vermont side of the Connecticut River. He wounded three more officers before ultimately being shot by police.

New Jersey

Richard Francis Cottingham

Richard Francis Cottingham was convicted of murdering six women in 1980. Despite also murdering a mother of two as his first kill, Cottingham was known for murdering and mutilating prostitutes at various hotels – although he had an affinity for the chain ‘Quality Inn’. Cottingham’s victims were often found with their heads cut off, covered in bite marks, with their hands and wrists bound.

In May of 1980, Cottingham picked up an 18-year-old prostitute and brought her to a Quality Inn. When he offered her a massage, he then drew a knife and handcuffed her. He brutalized her body before leaving, and her muffled screams became so loud that the hotel staff notified the police. Cottingham was convicted based on the testimony of three surviving victims, and is currently surviving almost 200 years in prison.

Cottingham has claimed to have killed between 80 and 100 women, despite only being prosecuted for the deaths of six.

New Mexico

Ricky Abeyta

Richky Abeyta was convicted of killing his ex-girlfriend and 4 other people, and two police officers in Chiamyó, New Mexico in January of 1991. When Abeyta arrived at his trailer that morning, he found his ex-girlfriend moving all of her things out with a group of people including her new boyfriend and their 6 month old baby. Abeyta opened fire killing every at the scene, including the infant. Two officers arrived to his trailer to deliver a restraining order served by his ex-girlfriend, only to find the massacre that had taken place and were also gunned down by Abeyta. After a 24-hour manhunt, he self-surrendered to the State of New Mexico. Abeyta claimed all of the killings were either accidental or self-defense, but was convicted and sentenced to 146 years in prison.

New York

Richard Kuklinski

Richard Kuklinski was an American contract killer active for just shy of 40 years in New York. Nicknamed “Iceman”, Kuklinski’s trademark was freezing a body in order to mask the time of death. While Kuklinski is said to have killed anyone who could have potentially testified against him, he grew messier in the late eighties which lead to his eventual arrest.

Kuklinski claims his first murder was in adolescence, when he beat another boy to death with a coat hanger for bullying him. He then became a notorious pool shark, who would beat or kill those who he lost to. Kuklinski’s reputation for being a brutal shark garnered the attention of the DeCavalcante crime family, who hired him for his first gangland killings in the early 50s. Kuklinski was also tied to the DeMeo crew and the Gambino family.

According to Kuklinski, DeMeo took him out one day and parked on a random street. DeMeo then ordered Kuklinski to kill an random passerby who was walking his dog. Without hesitation, Kuklinski got out, walked towards the man and shot him in the back of the head. From then on, Kuklinski was DeMeo’s favorite hitman.

Kuklinski claimed part of the reason he was able to avoid detection for so long was his varied methods of executing victims. He used guns, knives, explosives, tire irons, fire, poison, asphyxiation, bare hands “for the exercise”, and favored using cyanide in various methods as well. He also disposed of bodies in many different ways. He would dismember people, place them in 55 gallon oil drums, or place the bodies on top of cars that would be crushed at a junkyard.

Little mistakes with some of his final kills, especially the fact that the bodies were found, eventually lead police to Kuklinski. After an elongated undercover sting, Kuklinski was arrested. He claimed to have murdered over 200 people during his 36 year career. His wife and children said they had no idea about his double life.

North Carolina

Jeffrey MacDonald

Jeffrey MacDonald was a former doctor convicted in 1979 of murdering his pregnant wife and two daughters in 1970.

At 3:42 AM February 17, 1970 dispatchers at Fort Bragg (a military installation of the US Army located in North Carolina) received an emergency call from MacDonald reporting a “stabbing.” When four MPDs arrived on the scene they found MacDonald’s two daughter (ages 5 and 2) dead in their beds, and MacDonald’s pregnant wife dead on the floor of their master bedroom. Kimberly MacDonald was clubbed over the head and stabbed in the neck between 8 and 10 times, and Kristen MacDonald had been stabbed 33 times with a knife and 15 times with an ice pick. Colette MacDonald had been severely beaten (both of her arms were broken) and stabbed 21 times with and ice pick and 16 times with a knife, and was draped in Jeffery’s torn pajama shirt. Written above the couple’s bed in Colette’s blood was the word “Pig.” Jeffery MacDonald was found in the room with minor injuries; one clean stab wound to the chest and a minor concussion.

MacDonald claimed four assailants broke into his house, bound and beat him, and a woman in the room was chanting, “Acid is groovy, kill the pigs.” Eventually he says he was knocked unconscious, which is supposedly when these attackers went upstairs and murdered the rest of the family.

However, despite the charges against MacDonald being dropped during his Article 32 hearing, the blood analysis of the scene would prove differently.

Every member of the MacDonald family had a different blood type, and this anomaly lead prosecutors to a very, very different story. Investigators theorized that an argument between MacDonald and his wife broke out, and after his wife hit him with a hairbrush (causing his minor head injury) he began beating her with a piece of lumber. Kimberly, hearing the commotion, came into her parent’s room and was accidentally struck and killed by her father, explaining how her blood and brain matter ended up in the master bedroom. Believing his unconscious wife was dead, MacDonald carried his daughter to her room where he stabbed her to death – explaining how her blood got on his shirt despite him claiming he wasn’t wearing it when he found her body. When he went to Kristen’s room to dispose of his last remaining witness and complete the illusion of a mass murder, Colette (who wasn’t dead and woke up) ran into her room and shielded her daughter with her body, which is how her blood got into the two-year-old’s room. After killing them both, MacDonald wrapped his wife in a sheet and dragged her back to the bedroom, leaving a smudged footprint of her blood again on his way out of the room.

After several citizen complaints to the Justice Department, a grand jury in North Caroline indicted MacDonald in 1975 and within an hour he was arrested in California. Several court appeals and denials of double jeopardy and speedy trial arguments later, the murder trial began on July 16, 1979. After six hours of deliberation, the jury convicted MacDonald of one count of first degree murder, and two counts of second-degree murder. As of 2015, MacDonald is serving time at a federal institution in Maryland.

He still maintains that he is innocent.

North Dakota

Charles Bannon

Charles Bannon (pictured right) was the last lynching in North Dakota in 1931. Bannon was a hired hand on the Haven Family Farm. The Haven’s had lived on their farm for over 10 years, and had livestock as well as feed and machinery. None of the family members were seen alive again after February 9th, 1930. Bannon claimed that the family opted to move, and allowed him to rent the farm after their departure. When Bannon was arrested in December of that year on grand larceny charges, the investigation lead the discovery that the family had been murdered.

Bannon eventually confessed that after accidentally shooting the Haven’s oldest son, he killed the rest of the family out of fear. An angry mob broke him out of jail, put a noose around his neck, and demanded he tell the truth about what happened to the family. They tried to hang him on the Haven farm property, but the new owner chased the mob off. The mob eventually lead Bannon to the bridge on Cherry Creek, and pushed him off the ledge, hanging him to death.

Ohio

Lawrence Hensley

Lawrence Hensley was found guilty of killing three teenaged girls and a 37-year-old Bible study teacher in Sidney, Ohio in the summer of 1999. According to his pastor, Hensley was reportedly “wrestling with the devil” and trying to leave his life practicing the occult behind. However, it was suspected that Hensley was a sex addict and pedophile, as several teenaged girls said he would try to lure them to his house and pay them to watch sex acts. After a wounded 22-year-old girl was found outside of his home and identified him as the shooter, police found the bodies of two 16-year-old girls in a bedroom who had been shot with a shotgun. In the basement was the body of a 14-year-old girl, who had been shot, stabbed, and hidden in a cupboard. Many believe Hensley was afraid his sex secrets were about to be exposed, and thus he killed the girls to cover it up. Hensley drove his wife the the house of Brett Wildermuth, a Bible study teacher, and shot Wildermuth in the back and left his wife behind. After a two hour standoff at a gas station, Hensley surrendered. Hensley took a plea deal of four life sentences with no possibility of parole to avoid the death penalty.

Oklahoma

Gary Alan Walker

Gary Alan Walker was the spree/serial killer responsible for the 19-day terror of murders that claimed the lives of 6 people in the Oklahoma area in 1984. Walker first killed a man who unfortunately picked him up as a hitchhiker and revealed to Walker where he lived. Walker then broke into the man’s home and strangled him with vacuum cord and bashed his skull in with a brick. Walker confessed to the kidnappings, rapes, torture, and murders of 4 other women. He also attempted to rape another woman and when he was unsuccessful, he strangled her with her bra. Walker was given the death penalty, which was carried out in the year 2000. More than 30 people watched Walker’s execution by lethal injection.

Oregon

Diane Downs

Diane Downs was the Oregon mother convicted of shooting her three children in 1983. Downs was involved in an affair with a man in Arizona who said he did not want children in his life, and in order to be with him Downs believed she needed to rid herself of her two daughters and son.

On May 19, 1983 Diane pulled her car to the side of the rode and shot her children before shooting herself in the arm. She then drove them McKenzie-Willamette Medical Center, claiming that they had been the victims of a carjacking. Her daughter Cheryl was dead on arrival, her son Danny would become paralyzed from the waist down, and her daughter Christie suffered a massive stroke. Eye-witnesses stated that they saw Diane driving slowly towards the hospital, contradicting her statement that she rushed her children there. Furthermore, there was blood spatter all over the car but none on Downs. Nine months after the shooting, Downs was arrested and charged with one count of murder and two counts of attempted murder and criminal assault.

The prosecution relied heavily on the testimony of 9-year-old Christie, who survived the attack. After she regained her ability to speak Christie testified against her mother. When asked how she knew her mother shot her and her siblings she said, “I watched her…my mom did it.”

Before her arrest and trial, Downs became pregnant with a fourth child. A month after her trial, where she was found guilty on all charges, she gave birth to a baby girl. Just a week and a half before her sentencing, the state of Oregon seized the baby and she was adopted. Downs was sentenced to life plus 50 years for the murder and attempted murders of her children. The judge who sentenced her made it clear he intended for Downs to never be free again.

Pennsylvania

Michele Kalina

Michele Kalina was 45 in 2011 when she was brought up on murder charges for the bodies of five babies that were found in a closet of her Pennsylvania home. Kalina had been having an affair since 1996, and stated her boyfriend was the father of the five children. When he would notice her stomach growing, she blamed the change on cysts and would tell him she’d get the cysts removed. It was unclear when exactly she gave birth to the babies, and officers reported that Kalina was incredibly removed and disassociated from the events. The bodies of the babies were found in various states; some in concrete, others in coolers. When Kalina’s husband and teenaged daughter found them they had been told “not to go in the closet.” Kalina admitted to maybe “wrapping the baby too tightly in a towel” but never explicitly confessed to anything malicious. Kalina was sentenced to 20 to 40 years in prison.

Rhode Island

Jeffrey Mailhot

Jeffrey Mailhot is an American serial convicted of stranging and dismembering three prostitutes in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. During the summer of 2003 Mailhot picked up a woman and brought her back to his apartment to have sex with him. Mailhot began strangling her until he felt her stop struggling. When he noticed she was still breathing, he smothered her with a pillow before passing out in a drunken stupor. The next morning, shocked at what he had done, Mailhot dragged the body and left it in the tub. Two days later, Mailhot cut her up into pieces, put her into separate trash bags to avoid suspicion, and dropped them in various trash containers. 14 months later, he killed another woman in the same fashion, and a third 2 months after her. Though two of the bodies were never found, police did find the remains of one woman in a plastic trash bag 12 days after Mailhot’s arrest. Mailhot is currently serving two life sentences, plus 10 years, and will be eligible for parole at age 77.

South Carolina

Dylann Roof

Dylann Roof is the neo-nazi responsible for the Charleston Church Shooting of 2015. Roof claimed that, “Blacks were taking over the world” and said that he shot up the church in the hopes of enticing a race war. On June 17, 2015, Roof entered the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church during a routine Bible study. As the group began to pray, Roof pulled a Glock out of his pack and began shooting people saying, “Y’all want something to pray about? I’ll give you something to pray about.” He shot and killed 9 people, and injured one other.

Three days after the shooting, Roof was identified through a website that he operated dedicated to hate speech, and his neo-nazi views. Police aprehended him at a traffic stop where he was then arrested and questioned by the FBI. On January 11, 2017, Roof was convicted and sentenced to death by lethal injection. He is currently on death row.

South Dakota

Elijah Page

Elijah Page a teenager when he was arrested and convicted of the torture and murder of fellow South Dakota teen, Chester Poage. Page and two other teens told Poage they wanted to hang out, but when they decided to rob him things took a gruesome turn. They knocked Poage unconscious and then tied him up with a cord to a chair. They forced him to drink acid, cut his throat, stabbed him and beat him repeatedly, before putting him into his car and driving him to Higgins Gulch in the Black Hills. They then forced Poage to strip, attempted to bury him in the snow, and made him jump in and out of a frozen creek. Eventually, after failing to drown Poage, they beat him with rocks until he stopped moving. Page and one of his accomplices were both sentenced to death, while their third accomplice received a life sentence. Before his execution in 2007, Page penned a letter taking the blame for the crime saying he was threatening the other two with a gun to go along with the murder. He was executed by lethal injection on July 11, 2007.

Tennessee

Jessie Dotson

Jessie Dotson was convicted for the 2008 murders of his brother and 5 other people (2 of which were his toddler nephews) in 2010. After an argument broke out between Dotson and his brother, Dotson shot him and began eliminating the rest of the people in the house, who could’ve been witnesses to the murder of his brother. Dotson shot his brother’s girlfriend as well as two other friends, and beat his nephews and stabbed them. Dotson’s 9-year-old nephew waited for over 40 hours in the bathtub for help, and was found with a 4-inch knife in his head by police. This nephew, along with one other who survived the attack, and Dotson’s mother were key witnesses for the prosecution leading to his conviction. Dotson was sentenced to six death sentences and over 120 years in prison for the murders.

Texas

Ricky Lee Green

Ricky Lee Green was an alcoholic, drug addicted serial killer active between 1985 and 1986 in Tarrant County, Texas. After raping his wife who immediately left him, Green’s drinking and erratic behavior began to increase. Green’s first victim was a young man who sexually propositioned Green, who ended up beating him to death and mutilating his body. Green cut off the man’s genitals and disposed of the body in a secluded area near a lake.

Green’s second murder was with the assistance of his second wife. After picking up a young woman who was hitchhiking, Green and his wife propositioned her for a threesome. When she refused, they tied her to the bed and repeatedly assaulted and tortured her. Green stabbed and beat her to death with a hammer. Green and his wife repeated this with a second woman in the same fashion. Green’s last murder was a young man who he tied to the bed insinuating he wanted to have sex, and instead repeatedly stabbed the man while saying, “I hate homosexuals.” After this last murder, Green’s marriage deteriorated shortly after and his wife left him.

Green’s wife eventually went to the police and Green was arrested. Green was executed by lethal injection in October of 1997.

Utah

Clarence Bertucci

Private Clarence Bertucci of the US Army was the soldier responsible for the Utah Prisoner of War Massacre in 1945. Despite over 5 years of service, Bertucci was not being promoted in the Army due to having a “discipline problem” He reportedly was not happy with his tour, saying he felt cheated out of the chance to “kill some Germans.” Bertucci was stationed at Camp Salina in Utah, where the massacre took place.

On July 7, 1945 after a night of drinking, Bertucci waited until the midnight changing of the guard, waiting for the previous guard to go to bed. He then climbed the guard tower, loaded an M1917 Browning machine gun, and began firing into the tents of sleeping German POWs. For 15 seconds Bertucci moved the gun back and forth, hitting 30 out of the 43 tents before being removed by another solider. Bertucci’s only reasoning he gave for the shooting was he “just didn’t like Germans.” 6 Germans were found dead right after and 3 later died in the Salina hospital. The 9 victims were buried with full military honors, and Bertucci was found to be insane by the military and hospitalized.

Vermont

Brian L. Rooney

Brian Rooney is the former construction worker convicted of the 2006 abduction and murder of Michelle Gardner-Quinn. Jewelry store security footage showed Rooney walking with Michelle, and it’s been suspected that he let her borrow his cellphone so she could find her friends. Michelle’s body was found after she was missing for 6 days. She had been raped, assaulted, strangled, and beaten.

DNA evidence linked Rooney to the murder, and he was convicted in 2008. Rooney and his lawyers sought a new trial, claiming the jury was given poor instructions by the judge and that the government witnesses misled the jury. The Vermont Supreme Court ruled Rooney’s trial was carried out adequately, and his life sentence without parole would stand. Rooney is currently carrying out his sentence at a correctional facility in Kentucky.

Virginia

Seung-Hui Cho

Seung-Hui Cho was the senior student at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute responsible for the Virginia Tech Massacre of 2007. At 7:15 AM on April 16th, Cho first shot an RA and student at the West Ambler Johnston Hall dormitory on campus. Two hours later, Cho chained the doors to Norris Hall shut from the inside and placed a note on them saying that if opened, a bomb would detonate. At 9:40 AM, he began shooting. For 9 terrifying minutes, Cho roamed the building and and shot through various classrooms. He shot and killed 30 people and injured 17 others before shooting himself in the head. All of Cho’s victims were shot at least three times and multiple victims were shot in the head.

Two days later, NBC News received a package from Cho with a DVD, video clips, photographs, and a manifesto explaining the motives behind his actions. In his manifesto Cho likened himself to Christ and continually condemned rich kids, hedonism, materialism, and debauchery. NBC News President Steve Capus has expressed his hope that the full contents of the package are never released.

Cho had reportedly been told to seek medical attention for his severe depression and other mental health issues before the massacre.

Washington

Kyle Huff

Kyle Aaron Huff was the 28-year-old gunman responsible for the infamous Capitol Hill Massacre in Seattle, Washington in 2006. At around 4 in the morning on on Saturday, March 25th, Huff went to an after party for the “Better Off Undead” rave that was held at the Capitol Hill Arts Center. Huff reportedly did not know anyone at the party, but exchanged pleasantries with some people before leaving the party. Upon reentering the party, Huff returned with a 12 gauge pistol grip shotgun, a .40 caliber semi-automatic handgun, and multiple bandoliers with more than 300 rounds of ammunition for the guns. Huff immediately gunned down 5 people who were talking outside, and then entered the house and opened fire. He shot two more people on the first floor of the house, shot through a bathroom door where a couple was hidden (neither were hit), and injured at least one other person before police arrived. Before the police officer could order him to lower his weapon, Huff shot himself.

West Virginia

Harry F. Powers

Harry Powers was a serial killer active in 1931 who found his victims through personal ads in Lonely Hearts magazine. Powers would get close to his victims, and usually ask them for money before killing them.

Powers found his first victim through her lonely hearts ad and began writing to her using the name Cornelius Pierson. He eventually went to visit her and her three children in Illinois. They all disappeared shortly after. Powers began communicating with another woman from her lonely hearts ad, and took her to Iowa (where he was pretending to live) to marry her. He convinced her to give him $4000 from her checking account before their marriage, and she promptly disappeared as well. Police began investigating the disappearances, and while there was no Cornelius Pierson in Fairmont, West Virginia, “his” description matched Powers. Below the garage of Powers’ home they discovered the murder scene. Hair, blood, a burned bankbook, and the bloody footprint of a child were found in the rooms before the bodies of all five were dug up from a trench behind the home. Powers strangled the women and girls and beat the young boy to death with a hammer. Several other love letters were found in his car, all leading to the same intention with more would-be victims.

On March 18, 1932, Powers was executed by hanging for his crimes.

Wisconsin

Jeffrey Dahmer

Jeffrey Dahmer was a serial killer, necrophiliac, and cannibalistic killer who murder 17 men between 1978 and 1991 in Wisconsin. Dahmer admitted to committing his first murder when he was just 18, picking up a hitchhiker and beating him with a dumbbell before strangling him and dismembering him. Dahmer says he pulverized and destroyed the remains of his first victim with acid before scattering them in the woods behind his home.

Dahmer would frequently pick up men at bars or solicit male prostitutes, bringing them back to either his grandmother’s house or his North 25th Street apartment where he would drug them and kill them. Dahmer would at times keep the remains of victims, preserved genitals, organs, and skulls were found when he was arrested in 1991. Dahmer even kept the entire skeleton of one of his victims in the bottom of a filing cabinet. Dahmer is infamous for eating some of his victims; legs, arms, and hearts were found in his freezer for “later.” One of his experiments was injecting his victims’ brains with hydrochloric acid in an attempt to render them in a “permanent, unresistant, submissive state.”

After a would-be victim successfully escaped and ran to police, Dahmer was found out. Police found four severed heads in his fridge, dozens of polaroids of posed bodies and bodies in the state of being dismembered, and several other body parts all around the apartment at the time of his arrest. One medical examiner said, “It was more like dismantling someone’s museum than an actual crime scene.”

Dahmer confessed to his crimes and waived his right to an attorney during his interrogation. He plead guilty but insane to the 15 murder counts brought against him. As Wisconsin had abolished the death penalty, Dahmer was sentenced to life plus 10 years for the first two counts, and life imprisonment plus 70 years for the final 13. Dahmer was bludgeoned to death by another inmate in 1994.

Wyoming

Justin Geiger

Justin Geiger was a sophomore at the University of Wyoming who killed himself and two other students in the wee hours of the morning on July 16, 2006. After a small party at the house Geiger rented with several roommates, everyone but Geiger and the victims of the rampage remained. At about 2 in the morning, Geiger stabbed Adam Towler multiple times, and then attacked his roommate, both stabbing and sodomizing him before his roommate escaped the house and began screaming for help, alerting the quiet neighborhood, who called the police. Amber Carlson then walked into the room where Geiger killed Towler, and he promptly shot her in the face before turning the rifle on himself. Geiger’s motives for the murders were never discovered.